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This thesis examines how digital mediations of art and performances can contribute to shaping new memories and perceptions about the Danish colonization of the U.S. Virgin Islands. By analyzing six pieces of art and performances that engage critically with Danish colonialism and slavery, this study aims to expand the limits of how Danish colonization is traditionally perceived in Danish authoritative representations. Based on theory about visual art, mediatization and digital memory, this study has found that art as an aesthetic tool can revise and challenge traditional ways of engaging with the past and representing it. Art and performances can promote new ways of understanding the complexity of colonialism and bring attention to underrepresented views and voices. Contemporary media plays a key role in how we socially construct memory, as processes of mediatization have changed traditional methods of retrieving and storing knowledge. It is found that digitizing art and publishing it on the archive of the Internet, creates a foundation for potential dialogue, reflection and reconsideration of Denmark’s former role as a colonial power. The Internet allows for access to various, manifold perspectives and memories of the Danish past. Thus digitizing and publishing works of art and performance online, adds a dimension of shaping a ‘social network memory’ where viewers and artists are involved in processes of sharing and reflection that allow for discussions about Denmark’s colonial past.

This dissertation will demonstrate that a variety of Dominican Spanish in contact with St. Thomas English Creole (STTEC) revealed many features which are consistent with Dominican Spanish in other contact environments and some new features which are emerging as the result of uniquely STTEC influences. The most notable feature is the appearance of the vowel [ɛ] in Dominican Spanish, which in STTEC is highly indexical to St. Thomian identity. In the present sociolinguistic analysis, it was found that the variability of [ɛ] was significantly influenced by the following phonological segment, syllable stress, the language of the token, and the speakers’ social network ties and self-ascribed identity. This dissertation also includes a socio-historical background of St Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, a description of St Thomas English Creole, and a history of immigration patterns of people from the Dominican Republic to St Thomas, U.S.V.I. / Spanish

Historical records suggest that the coastlines of the British Virgin Islands (BVI) and the Sultanate of Oman have been subjected to catastrophic storm and tsunami events throughout recorded history. In 1945, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake -100 km south of Karachi, Pakistan generated a tsunami that impacted the coast of Oman and resulted in over 4000 deaths. Although the 1945 tsunami deposit has been documented, no other paleo-tsunami deposits have been identified despite the fact that historical and paleo-seismic records suggest the contrary. Similarly, the north-eastern islands of the Caribbean, particularly Anegada, BVI, have been subjected to intense hurricane strikes over the past 300 years. Due to its position relative to the Atlantic Ocean and the Puerto Rico Trench, Anegada is a potential recorder of local (e.g. 1690, 1867) and trans-oceanic tsunami events (e.g. 1755 Lisbon) as well. Potential tsunami overwash events at both locations are expected to be intermingled with marine incursions resulting from major storms and Holocene sea level change. Discerning between storm and tsunami overwash is problematic and usually favours a storm interpretation due to their frequency in the geologic record. This bias and lack of properly constrained geologic evidence has hindered the accuracy of tsunami prediction models, and subsequently, the assessment of seismic and tsunami hazards at both locations. Several studies employ the use of foraminifera to distinguish between storm and tsunami deposition; however, they are traditionally conducted in contrasting settings where differences between the terrestrial and marine realms are easily detected. Marine influenced settings lack the same degree of contrast; therefore, microfossil analysis alone is not effective. This dissertation investigates the use of foraminiferal taphonomy as an overwash indicator in two types of coastal settings: 1. a silisiclastic arid system lagoon (Sur, Sultanate of Oman), and 2. semi-tropical carbonate marine ponds (Anegada, British Virgin Islands). Although traditional microfossil taphonomic characteristics have been reported in some overwash studies, no multi-variate investigation into their usefulness as tsunami or storm indicators has previously been conducted. This dissertation shows that the surface condition (e.g. angularity, color, size, fragmentation, etc.) of foraminifera provides important information regarding the origin of overwash deposits and is useful in detecting older deposits at both locations when combined with other proxies. Several important contributions have resulted from this research: 1. Taphofacies analysis helped to constrain sediment provenance and modern nearshore hydrodynamics in an arid system lagoon that could not be achieved with traditional foraminiferal analysis alone. 2. The combined use of foraminiferal provenance and taphonomy was effective in identifying the 1945 Makran Trench tsunami at Sur Lagoon and will be a good indicator of older events at this location; a point which is particularly significant since no geologic evidence of previous tsunami events has ever been recorded. High abundances of predominantly marine taxa coupled with high abundances of large test sizes, fragments and fossil specimens were found to be indicators of tsunami deposition in contrast to lagoon deposition which was characterized by smaller test sizes and less robust lagoon taxa. 3. The preservation of the reefal dwelling Homotrema rubrum, a common encrusting foraminifer in Caribbean reef settings, provided the direction of origin of an overwash event deposited in marine ponds at Anegada and constrained the list of potential overwash candidates. Large and highly preserved Homotrema fragments that are typical of modem reef and storm wrack sediment were found in high abundances within Sand and Shell Sheet in three marine ponds at Anegada. A decrease in the abundance of highly preserved specimens from north to south throughout the ponds, coupled with mollusc taphonomic data strengthens a tsunami interpretation for the deposit. This dissertation shows that taphofacies analysis has broad application to event stratigraphy in a variety of coastal systems. Although the application of taphonomic analysis between the two contrasting environments was widely different, in both cases, taphonomic data provided indicative information regarding the origin of deposition of overwash units at Anegada, BVI and Sur, Sultanate of Oman. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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This thesis seeks to demonstrate that, in failing to take the sacramentality of the Word seriously, the preaching of the Church has suffered negative consequences. In short, preaching has often become, at best, a form of instruction or, at worst, an incantation of sorts, rather than an integral part of deepening our relationship with Christ by functioning sacramentally to bring about divine participation with Jesus' corporeal humanity in his living Word. Moreover, this trouble has had a profoundly negative effect on my own Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod due, in part, to our Reformation heritage as Christians who believe, teach, and confess the sole authority and divine inspiration of Holy Scripture. Yet, what has been lost over the past 500 years since the Reformation began is the reality of Christ's ongoing corporeal presence in and for the Church, particularly as he is present in the viva vox of preaching. In order to recover that reality, I propose that one should consider the annunciation to Mary where, with a sermon of sorts, the corporeal Christ took up residence in the flesh of his hearer. In addition to granting Mary a son, however, this tangible presence of Jesus also delivered to her precisely what was contained within his own flesh: the fullness of the Godhead (Col 2:9). When understood as a biblical paradigm for the Church, it becomes clear that what happened to Mary can, indeed, happen to Christians of the present day. To that end, I propose that preaching today, when understood sacramentally, can deliver the fullness of the person of Christ, who continues to come in corporeality, with humanity and divinity, in the viva vox of preaching.